DE 101 30 638 A1 discloses a heating system with a so-called vaporizing burner. A porous evaporator medium is arranged in this vaporizing burner in the bottom area of a combustion chamber, and this evaporator medium distributes the liquid fuel fed into it under capillary delivery action and evaporates the fuel into the combustion chamber on its top side, which is freely exposed toward a combustion chamber. To support this evaporation, a heating means, which can be operated electrically, is associated with the evaporator medium, so that increased evaporation of fuel can be achieved by raising the temperature in the area of this porous evaporator medium. Furthermore, another electric heating means in the form of a glow type ignition pin is present, which can generate very high temperatures locally and is thus used to ignite the fuel/air mixture generated in the combustion chamber and thus to start the combustion.
The heat output, with which the electric heating device associated with the porous evaporator medium is operated, can be set in this prior-art heating system as a function of various conditions. Thus, it is known that a higher heat output can be made available at lower ambient temperatures in order to thus intensify the evaporation of the fuel. Furthermore, the heating output of this heating device can be varied depending on whether such a heater is operated as a parking heater or as an auxiliary heater, because a longer time until the start of the combustion is acceptable in case of operation as a parking heater, whereas high temperatures shall be generated as quickly as possible in case of operation as an auxiliary heater.